


Love came down at Christmas

by scintilla10



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Meeting Again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/pseuds/scintilla10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before Christmas, James stumbled into Liv Nash on the High Street and made her drop all her parcels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love came down at Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Who Shot AR (akerwis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akerwis/gifts).



Just before Christmas, James stumbled into Liv Nash on the High Street and made her drop all her parcels.

"I am so sorry --" he started to say, even before he realized who it was, and dropped to his knees to pick them up.

"Oh!" she said, looking down at him kneeling on the street amidst a crowd of busy Christmas shoppers and giving him a little smile. "Detective Hathaway!"

"James," he said, too quickly and too firmly to seem natural, and at her expression he tempered it with, "James is fine, please."

She dropped down next to him then, and tried to reassemble the mess he'd made of her shopping bags. A length of her hair dropped into her warm brown eyes, and he was struck with the sudden urge to reach out and brush it back behind the soft shell of her ear.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said again, and this time she laughed.

"Christmas, eh?" she said, giving a little nod of her head to include all of the hustle and bustle around them.

James was quiet for a moment. Around the Christmas season, he seemed to feel more keenly the loss of many of the things he gave up when he left the seminary. It felt like a particularly lonely time of year now.

"Yeah," he said.

She cocked her head. "You're not the jolliest of policeman, are you?" she said, and there was a twinkle in her eye that James found he rather adored.

"Policeman are not known for their jolliness, as a rule," he pointed out dryly.

"Well," she said philosophically, "luckily there's more to Christmas than being jolly."

He helped her to her feet and wondered how cheeky it would be to make a joke about mistletoe to a botanist.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year," Liv quoted.

James looked at her in surprise. "Dickens," he said.

She laughed again, delightedly. "Every time you do that, it makes me want to try and stump you," she said.

He let a small smile slip out at the corner of his lips. "Perhaps I'll let you."

"Let me!" she said. "I want to beat you fair and square."

His heart, he realized, was beating far quicker than usual. It occurred to him that they were flirting, really flirting, on a street corner on the Oxford High Street. And that he was no longer on a case, and he hadn't yet managed to cock it up. He clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels, letting his eyes meet hers again.

"I like to go for nature walks," she said. "On Sunday afternoons. If you're free."

"Yes," he said, and it was as simple as that.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Christina Rosetti, and the Dickens quote was, of course, from A Christmas Carol.


End file.
